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Gripping late drama sees Springboks, Belgium win Challenger titles

Belgium celebrate in Stellenbosch (Photo by World Rugby)

The second leg of the Sevens Challenger Series in Stellenbosch provided a dramatic denouement on Sunday, South Africa producing a buzzer-beating try to defeat Belgium in the women’s final and clinch qualification for next season’s revamped World Rugby Series while the Belgian men clung on to pip Tonga in their final.

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The buzzer had already sounded when the Springboks – trailing 14-12 at the time – were awarded a penalty just metres from the Belgian line. They opted for the scrum and going the set-piece route proved to be the correct decision as the ball was worked wide to enable Libby Janse van Rensburg to dive over for the decisive score.

South Africa would still have qualified for the World Series if the Belgians had hung on in the dying seconds to be crowned second-leg champions. Both teams would have finished with 38 aggregate tournament points each and the tiebreaker would have been points difference across the two weekends, a category that favoured the host nation.

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However, by scoring the winning try with the final play of the tournament, South Africa now go forward into the World Rugby Series as Challenger Series champions in both the first and second legs.

They led 12-0 at the break in the second leg final courtesy of tries from Sizophila Solontsi and Ayanda Malinga, only to fall two points behind after Belgium’s Cecile Blondiau scored two converted tries.

South Africa struck back decisively, however, to take the second-leg title, something that first-leg men’s champions Tonga were unable to achieve in their section. In beating Germany 33-26 in the semi-final, the Tongans were crowned aggregate Challenger Series champions, an honour that secured them a playoff play at the London 7s next month where they will compete to get on next season’s elite World Rugby circuit.

However, they exited Stellenbosch without winning the second leg tournament as an unfancied Belgium came out of the blocks quickly and a late try-scoring Tongan surge wasn’t enough to deny the Europeans their 28-26 title-sealing win.

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SK 41 minutes ago
'The Wallabies only have themselves to blame': How the Lions sunk Australia in Melbourne

Having taken a 23-5 lead it was important to manage the game from there but Australia just couldnt do it. Conceding two tries before the break surrendering 12 points in the way they did was incredibly poor. The penalty for going in the side at the breakdown was just silly and allowed the Lions to get up field when 23-10 and some of the play in the 10 minutes before half time on defence was really not up to scratch. The Lions side has played in patches. They are not consistent and by no means have hit top form throughout this tour. When they have been in 5th gear the Aussies have had no answer and so it was the case in the last 20mins. The lack of game management comes directly down to an inexperienced backline, bad leadership, poor selection, a lack of killer instinct in a team desperately searching for gains against top opposition. They were underdone and should have had more warm up matches. The Wallabies spent the whole of last year improving the team and developing combinations to compete against the Lions. Schmidts selections has somehow seemingly countered his own preparation. After working so hard last year to improve the Wallabies have somehow come out like half-baked cookie, limp in most parts, crunchy in others but overall, an inconsistent texture and underwhelming taste that makes you wonder what could have been had you left it in for 5mins longer.

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